These articles, in PDF format, represent my work as a freshman at Truckee Meadows Community College. They were published in the school’s student paper, The Echo throughout 2009.

The Echo is a student-run newspaper at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nevada.

I have lost a few of the articles I wrote and some of the dates are missing.

Many of these articles are single-source news articles and film reviews. I have provided additional comments under the link when I feel it is required. For example, there are editing errors that are not in my original submissions. Also, I did not write the headlines unless I state otherwise in my comments.

This article represents my first try at covering an advance and then the follow-up. It was also the first time I took pictures for an article. The pictures are not shown here, but I will post them soon.

My negative review of this film was published next to a review that loved the film. It was an interesting contrast, but I stand by my review. I watched the film again about a year ago, thinking I was perhaps a bit harsh toward Spike Jonze’s approach. It turns out I was being nice the first time!

I have always wanted to be a movie critic. As a child I would watch Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert talk about movies and thought they had the greatest job in the world. Critics get to watch movies and then get paid to write about them.

I would still love to do this.

However, like many people, I always thought that many negative reviews were being a bit smug or elitist. After all, can’t a film just be fun to watch? After “2012,” I began to understand that, yes; critics enjoy making clever quips about bad movies. However, this is because the film was worthy of such derision.